Thomas Ankersmit – Homage to Dick Raaijmakers

For this electronic music performance, sound artist and composer Thomas Ankersmit delves into the ideas and instruments of a Dutch titan of electronic music, Dick Raaijmakers (1930–2013). Ankersmit’s homage was commissioned for this edition of Sonic Acts Academy and will première during the opening night at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. As a work of contemporary music in its own right, Ankersmit’s homage re-evaluates Raaijmakers’ concepts of sound, composition and spatial experience in a technologically more advanced era. Ankersmit mainly uses similar means as Raaijmakers: tone and noise generators, modulators, filters, mixers, amplifiers and speakers. However, instead of Raaijmakers’ usual method of editing with magnetic tape, Ankersmit uses computer software. Thomas Ankersmit is a Dutch musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam, whose work displays a deep interest in acoustic perception. Sonic frequencies at the threshold of human hearing, sound reflections and other acoustic phenomena are vital elements in both his studio recordings and his live performances. Combining analogue and digital electronic instruments, careful sound design and improvisation, Ankersmit creates visceral yet finely detailed sonic experiences. His site-specific projects have involved radar domes outside Berlin and an abandoned seaplane hangar in Tallinn. His installations have been presented at Berghain (Berlin), MoMA PS1 (New York), REDCAT (Los Angeles), and elsewhere. Ankersmit has collaborated with Phill Niblock and Kevin Drumm and has released albums on Touch, among others. ‘Ankersmit constructs a musical world that feels alive and capable of going anywhere, and yet also manages to give the music a strong sense of structured purpose’ (The Wire). www.thomasankersmit.com Premiere Sonic Acts Academy Opening Sonic Acts at Stedelijk 26 February 2016 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, NL www.sonicacts.com

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